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REPLICA.Interview with Nástio Mosquito

Nástio Mosquito: My name is Nástio. I guess it’s not who I am, I guess it is my name, no? But who I am is still under making. Son of the cold war. Confused cook. A penis carrier… a being made in the image of God or intelligent ape. When I is no longer in self, I guess we’ll know.

KT: Why are you here? Why did you accept the invitation of Malta Festival Poznań to be a curator of the Idiom?

NM: The opportunity to learn is one of the reasons I accepted to be here. There was an opportunity to make very clear that there is a difference – in this case – between ‘Poland’ and ‘the Polish’. That is not the same thing. I have an opportunity to participate on the clarification of what that difference is, we should all take this opportunity. No? Plus… it’s a job that fits in the path of our work.

KT: You curate the Idiom under the title ‘Army of the Individual’. Can you shortly comment on this title? How do you understand it? What do you want to say through this title?

NM: I guess the title ‘Army of the Individual’ has been with me for many years. It’s about attitude. How do you perceive your environment, how do you perceive your reality, and the quality of the relationships you want to have in that same environment? I don’t know whether it is contradictory reality, but between these two concepts you find a sweet spot. This reminds me, would love to have some Ipomoea batatas for lunch... possible? Sorry…

KT: When we invited you to be here, to co-create the next edition of Malta, we also spoke about the notion of war, conflict, this perspective, this broad reality. Can you comment on this word, ‘conflict’; and how the notion of conflict is somehow embodied in the Idiom?

NM: I don’t know. Today, I guess, I would tell when I hear you utter the word ‘conflict’, the other word that comes to me is: ‘inevitable’. Conflict is inevitable. We can only choose what kind of conflict we want to have. A good question could be, “what conflict you wanna be part of?”. Maybe that is not true… But this is not about the truth, is it?!? Sorry, rhetorical question….

So, it takes a fastidious aggressive outlook to live life. Aggressive when it is not passive, when it is engaged, involved, when it is active. It produces an exact energy when you know that conflict is inevitable. Especially if you want to bring things into existence that are not there. Humans seem to be obsessed with that. If there’s growth movement there will be a conflict, whether personal or communal. So, it becomes very important that we have pure quality conflicts, consequent conflicts, edifying conflicts. Today, that is what conflict means to me. That and the relationship I’m developing with my hotel pillow…

KT: You invited several artists to come to Poznań with their existing projects or projects that will be made on this occasion. Can you shortly tell what kind of motivation stand behind your decisions? Why we will meet these people?

NM: You gonna meet these people because they are above all very different than myself. All these artists, I have no idea how they do what they do. I have no idea what makes what they do sustainable. And that interests me, because they are constructing realities, they are exhibiting vulnerabilities, they are exercising their humanity in a way that I can’t conceive for myself. But I can’t not but to see the value in what they do. I guess those are the poetics of the reason why I invited them… then there is life. I want something from each of them.

KT: And what is the main driving force for you as an artist? Is being an artist a kind of your first identity? Or is it a way to be here? On this planet? How do you approach yourself as an artist? What drives you in your project, in your involvement?

NM: I’m trying to die in style. I wanna die well. You gonna look at my corpse, my skin is gonna to be beautiful. I’m gonna to look like I should be dead. That is my first identity as a person. And I guess that to be able to – as far as I can control it – guarantee that I’m a happy corpse, it seems that I can’t but do this… this thing I do with my life. Gatekeepers and motivational lovers say, “oh, you’re so much an artist!”. I say: “OK.”.

KT: Which project of your own you will bring to Poznan?

NM: That’s a very good question. Hopefully it will be something exciting. The biggest gesture is indeed the presence of the artists: Priscila Rezende, Alice Joana Gonçalves, Kelly Schacht, Li Ran, Benjamim Abras, Vic Pereiró, and Radouan Mriziga. That’s what the main invitation is. I just hope nobody gets attacked, deported, overdoses, showed how much they’re loved by police, or committed to house arrest. We all have plans…